Psychiatry textbooks from North America, such as Kaplan and Sadock's series and the work of Stephen Stahl, often exhibit a certain drive and enthusiasm in their energetic writing style. Biological Bases of Clinical Anxiety follows this tradition in the area of anxiety disorders.
In current psychiatric practice schizophrenia, depression and bipolar affective disorder are given much prominence. Yet taken together, the anxiety disorders are more common and can be highly disabling, but are often treatable with medication, psychotherapy or a combination of both. Burijon's book, therefore, provides a useful and readable summary of our current knowledge of these disorders. The work is organised into three areas, opening with three general chapters, five focusing on each of the main anxiety disorders (generalised anxiety disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, panic disorder, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder) and, finally, a reference section consisting of tables relating to psychotropic drugs and an extensive bibliography.
The reader seeking an introduction to the field will, therefore, find easily accessible information on the aetiology, management and treatment of anxiety disorders as a whole and then more specific information on the individual disorders.
The book is well-written with a flowing and consistent approach, certainly benefiting from having one sole author rather than numerous invited contributors who may lack a unified style, although diagrams and figures are a little rudimentary.
The first three chapters provide a well-constructed resource embracing all the anxiety disorder diagnoses. As suggested in the book's title, there is a chapter aiming to reconcile neuroanatomical, genetic and biochemical evidence relating to anxiety disorders to clinical presentations. Sections on behavioural neuroanatomy, describing the role and importance of specific brain areas and neurotransmitters in anxiety disorders, are perhaps the strongest and most illuminating features of the book. The psychopharmacology chapter is comprehensive but, in truth, can play only a supporting role with so many existing texts already available describing these psychotropic drugs in greater detail, albeit without the emphasis found here on their role in anxiety disorders.
The chapters on the individual disorders are robust and well-organised. Again, Burijon concentrates on descriptions of aetiological processes thought to underlie the disorders, both biological and psychological, while still succeeding in providing thorough coverage of clinical aspects. All in all, Burijon's work is a good introduction to the anxiety disorders. The excellence of the behavioural neuroanatomy chapter, and the pervasive theme of examining biological substrates for all of the anxiety disorders, make the book an attractive prospect for the more experienced clinician.
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